Wolf Justice

by Doranna Durgin

  He shouted back at her and drove his heels into his horse, snatching its mane high up on his neck and leaning forward in the saddle to free the animal’s quarters for its sudden charge up the steep outcrop. One bound it took, two, and almost to the top —

  A new voice rang out, and Lamar jerked back, twisting in the saddle and losing his grip on his mount’s mane — yanking on the reins instead. Kacey watched with a fascinated horror as the horse fought the inevitable, teetering on its back legs. Like a falling tree, it slowly tumbled backwards on top of Lamar, rolling on him a number of times before both horse and rider came to a stop in front of her alarmed mount.

  Stunned, she could only gape at the sight — until Rethia, somewhere up over the edge of the slope, shouted, “Kacey, run!”

  And by then, of course, it was too late. She finally saw what Lamar had seen, and what Rethia had known before them all — they’d met a small band of raggedly dangerous men, two of whom immediately scrambled down the hill. They grabbed Kacey’s reins while she sat stunned and unwilling to leave Rethia.

  Something woke in her when those calloused and dirty hands closed on her reins near the bit; Kacey took up the long trailing ends of those reins and slashed them at the men, discovering only then that one of the men was a lean, worn woman under close-cropped hair.

  That same woman ducked behind her arm as the reins came down on her face, and too late Kacey realized her intent; while her companion fought to hold the excited horse, the woman grabbed Kacey and yanked her out of the saddle. Pain shot through her ankle where it twisted and stuck in the stirrup; the horse’s hooves danced next to her head as she hit the ground.

  Huge horse hooves, iron-shod hooves — so big they were all she could see, her ankle all she could feel, and no thinking whatsoever going on in between, just the pure terror of her precarious position.

  “Hold him, dammit,” the woman snarled at her companion, jerking on Kacey’s leg with no care, ignoring Kacey’s cries. After a few agonizing moments, the foot slid free and Kacey rolled away from the horse, ignoring the rocks in her ribs.

  Her thinking started up in short jerks — got to get away can’t run then crawl, dammit — little more than emotion-ridden concepts, and then, as she hit something warm and soft and her eyes flew open, she stopped altogether. Inches from Lamar’s face, her gaze glued to his own dulling, sightless eyes, Kacey lost her ever-tenacious hold on sensible and practical.

  She opened her mouth and screamed.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 12

  Madehy looked out through the thin line of daylight at the barely open door. With the windows still shuttered from the storm, this meager opening was the only way to keep track of the yard.

  With the open door, she didn’t have to watch for changes, for shifting emotions in her unwelcome guests. All she had to do was think about it, and feel it.

  Never mind that thinking about it and feeling it were the very things she’d fought all her life to escape.

  But doing so from here was still better than being out there among them. And far, far better than being forced into contact with any of them. Bad enough that that woman had grabbed her, filling her with fear and frustration and unpleasant arrogance.

  Much, much worse to land on a dying man.

  As quick as Madehy was, she hadn’t been able to avoid the flash flood of his pain, of his weariness, of the very intensity that made him who he was. And underlying it all, the grief — for so many things. A woman. A boy. A way of life. It ran like water under ice, affecting all the things that might have touched him since, even the loyalties he felt and the good things he might have made from them.

  Madehy grimaced. She especially hadn’t been fast enough to avoid seeing how her touch had affected him. That he’d responded to it, reached for it, renewed his struggle to live. And so she’d had to force herself to endure it all again, more afraid of living with herself if she let him die than of living with whatever else of him might pour into her.

  As choices went, it had been no choice at all.

  But it was done. She’d given as much as anyone could be expected to give, and still they were here, invaders in her carefully arranged life. She healed animals. That’s what she did, that’s what she was.

  The wild ones brought spice to her life, and the healed stock — so much more straightforward — brought her bartered food, and muscle if she needed it. Only the hunter spoke to her, and he rarely enough — as if he understood her needs, he’d never even offered his name to her. He’d gifted her with his distance and his carefully cool disinterest.

  For a moment there, she’d thought he might even clear out the barnyard. But no, not until tomorrow morning. She wondered how she’d make it that long, hiding in her own house, lurking at the door to spy on her own yard.

  Except the one she’d touched — the one they called Dan — had looked over at the door. Had looked straight at her, as if he somehow knew she was there. He couldn’t have, she’d told herself, he couldn’t have, but she’d slumped back against the wall, unable to convince herself.

  He was gone, now. Had been gone for some time, though she could feel him out there, a little spark of magical scent that everyone had but that she could usually ignore. Not him, not after she’d touched him. He’d been out in the woods, traversing a huge loop around the farm, and now he was closing in on it again.

  The others had been quiet in his absence. The big man was tired, more bruised, cut and battered than he’d let on to his mates; Madehy had felt that much without any effort at all. Now he was in the barn with the injured woman, showing her what to do for the wounded until she reached Pasdon.

  The woman had started praying silently to Ardrith the moment she’d offered to stay; Madehy supposed she was praying still. And well she might, for although Madehy had provided some herbs — to fight infection, to strengthen bone, to obscure pain — the man’s had only rough battlefield skills, and the woman had not even that.

  The wizard wandered elsewhere. Not long before, there’d been the slight current of magic — faraway magic, magic that had reached out to her farm and found this man. She didn’t know what it was about and she didn’t care, not as long as he didn’t gather magic of his own, revealing the fugitives to their enemies and bringing them down on this farm.

  The haughty woman slept, napping in the hayloft. Madehy judged Kalena to be of her own age, though she knew she looked much younger. She also knew this mess revolved around her — she was as clearly Resioran Highborn as the older man was Resioran country stock.

  Resioran freedom, that’s all she seemed to hear about lately. If they wanted to be off by themselves, then let them go, that’s what she thought. No one should be bound to any society against their will. She’d fought too hard to earn that freedom for herself to take it lightly.

  Dan was closing in on her. No, she corrected herself, he’s closing in on the farm. He wouldn’t come into the house, she was sure of that. For all the pain he’d caused her, he also seemed to be the only one to understand that she was truly different, that her strange ways were based on undeniable need, not eccentric whim.

  She reached out a little, trying to pinpoint his location, wondering if she dared linger by this door any longer. Kendall was already positioned at the little yard entry, his tremendous size a comforting reassurance.

  The woman Kalena would barge in if she could. So would that wizard.

  There, Dan was close now. Too close. She withdrew her exploration the instant she touched him. He wasn’t alone.

  He’d gone out alone, but he was coming back with another stranger, someone else whose feel she didn’t know. Someone who’d bring even more strife to her home.

  No matter how she felt about Resioran freedom, Madehy didn’t want the struggle for it to happen here.

  Madehy peered through the doorway and watched the hair bristle along Kendall’s spine. Stay, she told him, embracing his presence as she could never embrace any human touch. That he heard her dis
tinct order was doubtful. That he felt her touch was certain.

  Kendall stood, then, reacting to the two barely discernible figures approaching along the road, one of whom led a horse. But he remained within the fence, and a rare smile hesitated at her mouth. He would stay as told, no matter how much he wanted to clear his yard of strangers.

  This new one, at least, seemed to pose no threat. Madehy relaxed a little as she saw the expression on Dan’s face; whoever she was, he knew her, even if he was puzzled and upset by her presence. And she bore no overt weapons, nothing more than the knife that most people carried. But the horse —

  Madehy sucked in her breath and slid out of the house before she thought about it; Dan and the woman were just coming to the hitching post. “Bring that horse over here,” she demanded of Dan, surprising even herself with the strength of her voice.

  The woman looked at her with astonishment. The braid of her long brown hair was uneven and loose, her expression exaggerated by the dirt on her face. Dan, too, hesitated a moment, but Madehy could see that he only made sure that she really meant it, that she wanted him that close. She held out her hands for the reins.

  He took the horse from his new companion and brought it up to the fence, where he looped the reins over its neck and stepped back. Understanding.

  Madehy ran her hand down the horse’s long, bony face; its eyes half-closed as it leaned into her. Its exhaustion trickled quietly into her own bones, and dull hunger gnawed her stomach. One foot ached from bruising, and a knee throbbed with some old, chronic pain.

  Nothing here that a little time and care wouldn’t put to rights. Madehy scratched around the animal’s ears, beneath the bridle, until the itch she felt disappeared.

  She couldn’t bring herself to look straight at the woman, but her words were direct enough. “You were cruel to use him so.”

  “I didn’t —” the woman said, but cut off her nonplussed response to replace them with irritation. “You don’t have any idea what I’ve been through. Keep your words to yourself.”

  “Without my words, he has no one to speak for him,” Madehy shot back at her.

  “Madehy,” Dan said, and waited for Madehy to quit looking through the woman and transfer her attention to him instead. “She used herself as ill. We’ll care for the horse.”

  Madehy took her hands from him and stepped back, abrupt gestures with no understanding or forgiveness behind them. “That makes it no less cruel.”

  “And you can go to a cold and lonely hell!” the woman snapped at her, but Madehy took another step back at the undertone of tears in the woman’s angry words, and barely stopped herself from doing what was so instinctive, so reflexive as to be involuntary. Reaching out.

  Until these people were gone, she had to take refuge in herself, to keep her healer’s skills trapped inside her own body.

  To the woman she said nothing. To Dan, she also said nothing — but she managed to meet his eyes briefly as he retrieved the horse, finding them just as clear, just as grey as the night before. She flicked her own gaze quickly away, bracing herself for the onslaught that such direction connection inevitably inflicted on her —

  It didn’t come. How — not her doing, but that meant... how had he —

  Vaklar’s voice shattered apart her thoughts; Kalena’s demanding reply plunged her into a despair of sorts. Back to the house, then, back behind the door, which suddenly seemed all too flimsy a wooden shield.

  And oh, hells, there came the wizard, cheerfully hefting the collection of old spare horseshoes he’d hooked over his hand. Wanting them for spares, no doubt. With a last, desperate glance at Dan, Madehy fled.

  “Who,” said Kalena, with the contrived pause she used to make her words sound more important, “is she.” Talking about the new woman, no doubt.

  “The woods are clear,” Dan said; Madehy knew he spoke to Vaklar and peered through the door crack just in time to confirm it, and to see Kalena’s face redden because once more, someone was ignoring her imperiousness. “I found a deer trail that’ll take us back toward the main road.”

  “That’ll make things easier,” Vaklar said, and inclined his head at the woman, asking without words.

  “This is Teya A’apa,” Dan said. “Patrol wizard for the Remote.”

  ~~~~~

  Teya waited out the outburst that followed her introduction; she’d been expecting it. But she was so tired, as weary as her overworked horse. Her shoulder ached, her legs trembled, and her mind turned to total fuzz, a pile of carded wool.

  Reandn hadn’t greeted her with anger when he’d slid out of the woods behind her, startling both her and the horse. He’d been upset, yes, the kind of anger that meant worry — she could see that now. He’d asked a few short, sharp questions — was everything all right with the surviving Wolves, was she all right, had she been followed by anyone — and then simply allowed that she looked like she could use a good meal and a rest.

  Now his seemed like the only voice that wasn’t raised amidst the others’ noise. The Highborn woman, her clothes soiled, her complex hairstyle as much a mess as Teya’s own braid, the smaller man, his court hairstyle as out of place here as the woman’s, and the big man — the really big man — trying to shut them both up.

  Finally, the smaller man’s voice rose above them all, filling the sudden silence as the other two abruptly gave up. “You dared to call in another wizard?”

  He was a wizard, then. A court wizard. Teya gave him a swift look, and just as swift an assessment. She’d seen this sort before. Just old enough to enter serious schooling as magic faded, and not old enough to have had any real experience before it was gone altogether. In Solace, most of them resented every moment of reschooling they’d endured and left as soon as possible, acquiring positions through personal contacts and family clout.

  Though many of them had true talent, their magic was rough around the edges, showy when possible, and narrow in scope, rarely matching their fervent ambition. In manner she found them almost universally unbearable, all the more so for the way they secretly begrudged the younger students.

  “As it happens,” Reandn said, in that carefully controlled yet still edged way he had, “she’s here for her own reasons. We haven’t discussed them yet.”

  “Then how did she know where to find you?” Elstan persisted. “You told us no one knows about this assignment.”

  “Are you always this rude?” Teya found herself saying, too tired to cater. “I’m a wizard, meir. I know perfectly well how to spell-find my own patrol leader.”

  “Ex-patrol leader,” Elstan muttered.

  “Teya,” Reandn said, restlessly flipping the end of her horse’s reins against his palm, “they’ve reason to be concerned.”

  Teya looked at him, more carefully than when they’d met on the tree-shadowed and sun-dappled road. She saw again the thick black scab through his brow, the bruises on his face, and the ill-fitting cut of his shirt. Someone else’s clothes. She raked her gaze over the Highborn woman, who lifted her chin in response, lips tightening over her teeth. The big man met her gaze in a frank and equally scrutinizing look, but he held himself stiffly, and there was old blood crusted at the roots of his hairline.

  “I’ve been feeling magic for days,” she said. “Yesterday morning...” She glanced back to Reandn. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “With good reason,” Reandn said darkly, giving the wizard a grim look. “But there’s a healer here. She’s... very much like Rethia, in some ways.”

  “I half expected to find Rethia here with you,” Teya admitted. “Didn’t you use the amulet?”

  He gave his head a short, sharp shake. “Lost it in the fight.”

  “We’re telling her all, then, Dan?” the big man asked, lifting an eyebrow as though it was a pointed reminder.

  “She’s an experienced patrol wizard, the only one the Wolves have. And she can protect me from her magic.”

  “If she’s that good, why didn’t the Keep choose her for t
his assignment?” the court wizard asked.

  “Teya, this is Elstan.” Reandn gestured at the wizard, his tone dry. “And this is Meira Kalena. Vaklar is her personal guard — along with the two others in the barn who still live so far. Four others are dead, and we lost two Hounds as well.”

  “How?” Teya asked, aghast, finding her mind suddenly filled with the images of her dead comrades.

  Kalena spoke up then, her manner coolly assertive. “Protecting me,” she said. “The new Resioran ambassador to King’s Keep.”

  “That’s that decision made, aya,” Vaklar grumbled. “You want the rest, then, Teya girl?”

  “The rest... ?”

  “A briefing,” Reandn said, and gave her a grin, a comradely expression she wasn’t sure she’d ever gotten from him before. “The parts you haven’t seen, heard, or already figured out.”

  She stumbled over her reply, suddenly realizing that she and Reandn shared not only similar horrors, but the same horrors — and that it had forever changed the way they would work together. Was Saxe right, wanting to split up the rest of us? Or is he more wrong than ever?

  “ I didn’t come all this way to sit and watch.” I came because I didn’t trust another wizard with my patrol leader. The thought came with a surprising wave of possessiveness.

  And it seemed she had been right to worry.

  “She means yes, please,” Reandn informed Vaklar.

  Just like that, Vaklar filled her in — couching the facts in an accent so thick Teya had trouble deciphering his words. She was just tired, she decided — and then realized so was he. He concluded with a few short words about Madehy, the healer who owned this farm, and Teya found herself looking around despite his comment that she was rarely to be seen.

  All she found was a huge creature in front of the house, his fawn coat bright in the sunlight, his black-tipped ears cocked forward as if he, too, were following the explanation. “What kind of a dog is that?”